CineArts at Hyatt
1307 Bayshore Highway,
Burlingame,
CA
94010
1307 Bayshore Highway,
Burlingame,
CA
94010
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This venue’s 70mm presentations history is included in the recently-published article “70mm Presentations in San Mateo County: A Chronology of 70mm Large Format Exhibition, 1966-Present”.
My Father and Grandfather took me to see Grand Prix in 1966, I was only 4 ½. I don’t remember much of the movie, but I do remember the theater being so big. I didn’t know until many years later watching the movie for a second time that James Gardener was driving a 1966 Shelby GT350H with a 4 speed.There is 2 or 3 scenes with the car in the movie. Here’s the funny thing, the night I saw that movie with my dad and grandfather I was driving in a 1966 GT350H with a 4 speed (out of a 1001 made only 85 are 4 speeds). I still own the car today and live approximately a mile from the movie theater.
EmpressDR: It’s highly doubtful you saw “The Empire Strikes Back” at the Hyatt in May 1980 since it is very well documented that “Empire” opened during that timeframe exclusively at the Northpoint in San Francisco (plus one theater in Santa Clara County and one in Marin County). Everyone else in the Bay Area had to wait at least a month before the movie’s release broadened.
An April 2017 Google map street view shows the theater building still there and just a few weeks ago I drove down the Bayshore Freeway and it is still standing.
The Hyatt may not be with us much longer. A May 5 article in the San Mateo Daily Journal this year reported that plans are afoot to redevelop the property with an office complex and restaurant. The nearby Burlingame Drive-In site is expected to be redeveloped as well, with an even larger office project.
I started working at the Hyatt Cinema in 1973 as a doorman. I was the manager from 1976-1977.
By the time I started working there, it was already a two-screen theater. As I recall, 720-seats in the large cinema and 189-seats in the small theater, which we called, “The Abortion.”
It was not well done. There was little sound isolation in the small theater and it was an odd, two-tiered seating configuration.
The large cinema was a delight. It was a very large, curved screen and was set-up for 70mm, 6-channel magnetic sound (although it was never used while I was there) and I don’t think all of the five speakers behind the screen were operational. As I recall, number 2 never worked.
I did borrow a print of Funny Lady from the Burlingame Drive-In one night as it had a 4-channel magnetic soundtrack. We had a crew party and turned the volume up after hours. It sounded pretty darn good (even if the movie was not all that).
A lot of memories there. Sorry to see it in the shape it is now.
December 15th, 1972 grand opening ad as a twin in photo section.
The (single screen) Hyatt Cinema never showed Cinerama films. I saw a production of South Pacific (with Mary Martin) there when it was a theater in the round in the mid 60’s. After it became a single screen theater in ‘67 or '68 I saw Doctor Zhivago there on it’s very impressive large curved screen. After it was twinned I never went back.
March 29th, 1966 grand opening ad in photo section.
Here is an architectural rendering of the Hyatt Music Theatre. The theater was designed by architects Vincent G. Raney and Robert M. Blunk.
Raney, of course, was a well-known Northern California theater architect who designed dozens of movie theaters. Robert Blunk was a Burlingame architect who, as far as I’ve been able to discover, designed only one other house, the Hillbarn Theatre at Foster City, California, (1966) which, like the Hyatt, was a stage venue.
I was reading on Loop Net that the Hyatt is Now For Lease, the only thing missing is the seats they have put in folding chairs. It’s AVA starting May 30 th, 2012
Off topic but when the Peninsula/Burlingame Drive-Ins opened, one screen was the Peninsula and the other was Burlingame. They operated as two separate theatres for all intents and purposes.
Concerning the Hyatt Cinema — the screen was curved but I don’t know of a time they ever showed Cinerama films. The main house was actually decent to watch a movie in, the balcony theatres were completely jacked with multiple entrances to various seating areas most of which were akwardly positioned away from the screen.
Bob Jensen’s doubts about this theater’s history are justified. It was not originally built for Cinerama, or any other wide-screen process. In fact, it didn’t open as a movie theater at all, but as a live “theater-in-the-round.” It was originally called the Hyatt Music Theatre, and hosted both live theater, including musicals, and concerts by pop acts.
A comment by Dave Wills, the theater’s technical director, on this message board page at the Burlingame Historical Society web site says that the house opened in September, 1964, with a production of “Flower Drum Song” and closed in January, 1966, with a production of “Peter Pan.”
I think the house might have continued as a concert venue for a while after it stopped presenting Broadway musicals, and before it was converted into a cinema, as I’ve come across message board comments mentioning concerts there in 1967 and 1968. However, it’s possible that the conversion to a cinema included provision for such live events too. It was definitely showing movies by 1968.
This post at the SF Gate mentions the Hyatt. The author saw “The Empire Strikes Back” there, and says that “…the Hyatt had a huge curved screen that was the best I’ve seen anywhere north of the Cinerama Dome in Hollywood”, so it was definitely equipped for 70mm movies after conversion.
The Hyatt Music Theatre is mentioned in Dorothy Dandridge’s posthumous biography/autobiography “Everything and Nothing.” She played Julie in a 1965 production of “Showboat” which was presented at the Hyatt.
Up in the intro it mentions “It was built to showcase the roadshow versions of the CINERAMA movies in the early-1960’s”. I’ve checked around and can find no information of this theater ever showing anything in CINERAMA or even Dimension 150.
Perhaps the plan was for it to be a CINERAMA Theater and it just never happened. Anyone know anything about that?
It may have showed 70mm roadshow movies, but as far as I can tell, not CINERAMA.
Anyone know the size of the screen and did it have any curvature?
If you go to the map and the satellite photo, the theater is at the top left hand corner of the photo, right on the waters edge. It is a white square with a brown circle in it.
That photo from 2009 is indeed from the drive-in. It was next to the freeway, though, rather than near the screens.
I didn’t realize the place had closed until I drove by it last week. Guess it had been longer since I’d been there than I thought.
It was definitely run down, but it was a great and quirky place to see smaller films. It will be missed.
The Hyatt opened in the mid 60’s as the Hyatt Theatre-in-the-Round, doing touring productions of plays and musicals. As a kid, I saw PETER PAN with Kathryn Crosby. It couldn’t compete with the Circle Star in San Carlos, so after a few years, it became a single-screen theatre, called the Hyatt Cinema. Around 1970 it was twinned, but they did a terrible job (I remember watching FIDDLER ON THE ROOF and hearing the sound from THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE bleeding into the theatre). At some point they carved out a third theatre. I moved out of the area, but on a business trip in 2006, I was staying at the Hyatt so I went to see a forgettable movie one night. It was really sad to see how far the old gal had sunk. The restrooms were filthy and rundown and the theatre had the unmistakable air of death.
Here is a 1986 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/p5uzdl
I don’t know where this goes. The drive-in had four screens, but this doesn’t look like a drive-in.
http://tinyurl.com/qdegsf
Here is a November 1968 ad from the San Mateo Times:
http://tinyurl.com/2c98p6
Damn too bad I never got to see a movie here.
Theater is now CLOSED as of last week…the beginning of what will likely be many closures by its new evil corporate parent, Cinemark theaters.
Next time I am in San Francisco I will go see a movie there. I hope it survives.
The inside is 60’s too!
I drove by this theatre once after landing at the airport. I wanted to go inside because the outside looked so 60’s.
Now called the CineArts @ Hyatt as of this week.